Snoqualmie

Buy a good umbrella.

Last night I tried desperately to do anything other than work on my back-to-school personal statement. I pored over course lists for breadth requirements -- did you know that I've taken one satisfactory course for each of the seven breadth sections except for the Social & Behavioral Sciences? For that one I have five courses, which wouldn't be surprising except that that isn't counting any of my anthropology classes.

What the hell does this have to do with umbrellas? When I got done wasting time with breadth requirements I did some searching for MLS programs. I found two accredited programs on the West Coast: San Jose State and University of Washington. You're nodding. Either you're just very sleepy, or you see how I'm being reeled in to the Northwest by factors beyond my deliberate control. I moved 500 miles north to a university which charged me fees that I was obligated to pay in some fashion. I took the first student job on offer and liked it pretty well. I grew frustrated with my first major and chose a different one. I floundered for career ideas and had a brainstorm that combined my student job and my major in a plausible fashion.

Do you see what I'm saying here? None of these actions necessarily involve forests, rivers, gorges, bridges, volcanic mountains, or high levels of precipitation, and yet here I am looking at graduate study in Seattle and probably winding up working in a Native American heritage museum somewhere. If I spend all day in the basement archive, I won't be able to see how gloomy it is outside. I'll just pretend that my fuzzy mittens and special rosy lightbulbs are there to protect the delicate artifacts instead of to keep me warm and undespondent. Who can argue with me? I'll be the superarchivist, the archaeologist turned librarian who knows more about preserving thousand-year-old fenceposts than you, thank you very much. Put your mittens back on before you ruin something.

And, yes, I'll buy a good umbrella.